Un Jeu de Dupes
by xXmarionetteXx
Summary: Translation: "A Fool's Game" The unforgettable love story of Damon Salvatore and Lizette Pierét
1. Prologue

**_Summary: "A Fool's Game" The unforgettable love story of one Damon Salvatore and Lizette Pierét Rated M for Lemons-Not my best summary, but I think you'll like it! :) R&R_**

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Prologue

There was a brief silence in the air as she gazed up at him in longing. Oh, how she had so longed for this moment… how she had dreamt of it throughout the years and years spent apart.

Could it really have been more than two hundred and fifty years ago? Though despite the two and a half half century that had passed since their parting, he looked exactly the same as

he had the last day she had seen him. All right down to eyes the color of oak leaves when exposed in the sunlight. Frozen in the body of his twenty-six year-old glory; he truly was

magnificent… if only he could remember her…

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**_A/N: By the way, here's a list of all the chapters in chronological order. Some are in French, a couple are in Italian, so I've written their translations with them._**

**Prologue**

**Chapitre 1-"De jà vous"**

**Chapitre 2-"Dérobé"** F. (Stolen)

**Chapitre 3-"Je connais ton visage…"** F. (Familiar Face)

**Chapitre 4-"C'est la vie"** F. (Such is Life)

**Chapitre 5-Wasted/"My Hero…"**

**Chapitre 6- Buzz Kill**

**Chapitre 7-Katherine Pierce**

**Chapitre 8-"la practica rende perfetti…"** I. (Practice makes Perfect…)

**Chapitre 9- "Stubborn as a… me…"**

**Chapitre 10-"Rendez-vous"** F. (Meeting)

**Chapitre 11-"que des mots"** F. (Only words)

**Chapitre 12-"Mon Chevalier…"** F. (My Knight)

**Chapitre 13-"Désir"** F. (Desire)

**Chapitre 14-J'avoue** F. (I confess)

**Chapitre 15-"Fin"** F. (End)


	2. Deja vu

**De jà Vous**

It was still the same room; it was not any different than it had always been. They had played in this room as children, all through their youth. So why did it feel so different now? Well, in

all honesty, though _the room_ hadn't changed, but the boy who lived here had. For he was no longer the little boy whom had once been her most beloved play mate; in fact, that little boy

had ceased to exist as of recent days. At present, it was clear that their nursery days were over. And that little boy, whose eyes reminded her of fresh grass when the sunlight shone

with not a cloud in sight, now meant so much more to her. Their bond had grown from that of a brother's protective devotion to his sister, to that of a lover. And tonight, they would

surrender to their desires and evolve in the passion that they so strongly felt for one another. Tonight, they were no longer nursery mates or infatuated adolescents… no. Tonight, he was

a man, and she was a woman; the way that God had made them in His own hands.

Damon held her hand in his as he silently led her through the dark mahogany wood door, the only sound to break the silence being the soft click of the wrought iron handle as he closed it

behind her. Then she followed him into his bed chambers, where her eyes immediately fell on the great four-poster with a dark canvas fabric draped between each post.

He let her sit on the side of the bed and he knelt before her. His fingers lightly traced the line of her jaw, and down the contours of her pale throat.

"You're trembling…" he noted as his lips grazed her cheek, his eyes fixated on hers.

"Am I?" she had not noticed until she spoke, because her voice shook too.

"Are you frightened?" he whispered gently.

"Yes…"

"Don't be… it's me… it's Damon… _your _Damon… and I love you…" he breathed against her throat, nuzzling the skin there. And then he raised his head to speak sweetly to her "il mio

angelo…" and he kissed her mouth.

"_Je t'aime aussi Damon_…" she whispered heavily as his tender kisses descended down her shoulder- naked in her deep-velvet gown.

He scarcely knew what to do with all these powerful foreign emotions as they built in his chest, expanding his heart until all he wanted was to feel her touch, and to finally know her in

every aspect of life that he could. He had never been with a woman before-not like this. And nor had any woman ever been in his bed chambers- house servants excluded (and of course

he dared not to think of his poor sainted mother.)

Lizette's gown gathered about midway along her stocking clad legs, and Damon gasped at the sight. He had never seen more than a woman's ankle once, and even that had been

unintentional and he had turned away in his own embarrassment. But he had been a boy then, not more than twelve at most. Now he was about to become a man.

As his eyes traveled along the patterns of her stockings, he wondered if the skin beneath them would be as soft as that of her hands… As he discarded of the heavy wool cloth, he

discovered that the skin hidden beneath was even softer- much like the flesh on her shoulders.

Tenderly, he kissed the skin just above each knee and her breath caught in her throat. Her skin- normally fair as cream, was flushed along her throat. Her breast threatened to spill from

the gown as her torso quivered beneath her bodice, and Damon struggled to extricate her from the fastened restraints of her corset.

He wanted to know every part of her… to see her undone from her proper, French-risen heritage and upbringing. After all, she would be no lady after this act was committed. Nor was he

any such form of a gentleman. This was a deed that, once completed, could not be taken back. To Hell with anyone who tried to stand in their way, he would gladly suffer _la Morte Nera_ a

thousand times over for her hand, and he would weep at her feet to have her as his own. He decided that, after tonight, even if he died trying, he would see to it that he would soon

have at least some form of a claim on her. To Hell with their families, to Hell with the church, he would have her and he would cherish her long after merely entering upon the morrow. For

many years to come, and through all eternity, should he spend it rotting beneath the ground or out amongst the stars, he would cherish her every breath.

"I want you to marry me Lizette." He said to her. It was not a question, he continued. "You are my only lover, the only one I need and the only one I want. And I need more than a

mistress, Lizette, I need a wife… I need _you_."

Lizette kissed him, "Damon…" she smiled. "I have always been yours for the taking, you know that."

Damon smirked at her, "Then I should like to collect what is mine then…" he groaned against her flesh as he tore through the corset restraints and discarded the gown and kissed her

again.

"Oh… _faire l'amour avec moi, Damon_…" she whispered, her voice lowered in her state of deep arousal.

"_Tutto quello che mi chiedi,__ il mio amore_…" and he consented to her wishes… taking precise care to give her all that she could ever need or want, and to feel the way that she made him

feel with even just the slightest touch of her hand on his. He wanted her to know him as much as he wanted to know her. He wanted to feel connected to her, and so did she.

She, while still delusional in her state of mine, began to claw at his shirt and he chuckled and caught her wrist as she tried to unfasten his belt. "As I've said before- _mon petit lapin_-

"_lasciatemi piombo" yes_?" he teased her.

"Lead _faster_…" She begged. Damon laughed and was about to respond when- still caught in the trance of his seduction- Lizette shoved Damon to the side of her on the bed and straddled

his hips, biting on the skin over his collar as she tore the fabric of his shirt in order to get him out of it. And in the next moment, both she and Damon were completely unclothed.

Damon moaned as Lizette ground her hips against his, aching for his touch, begging of him not to stop, using- in her perfect French- words that even he had not learned. But he

understood her desire, and he suddenly complied to her need.

"Oh, Damon… oh…!" Lizette cried, her voice torn in pain as Damon shivered, the ache nearly lifted- bringing with it a new sort of pressure that he had certainly never experienced. And

Lizette cried.

"Oh… oh God, I… Lizette…! Are you alright? Oh… what have I done?! Lizette-are you hurt…? Oh no, what have I done…?!" he panicked, though Lizette shook her head in protest. She did

not want him to stop.

"_Non, Damon, non_, non_… ne s'arrêtent pas… s'il vous plait!" she begged him, desperately pleading for him to continue._

And he didn't, even though each of Lizette's sobs wretched at Damon's heart, but she urged him to go on, through his panic. He did hesitate out of fear of hurting his angel, but he could

not deny her anything. So he continued until he could pick up a steady rhythm.

Lizette, still straddling his hips, gradually began to move along with his pace and meet each thrust. She moaned loudly occasionally and their rhythm gradually quickened as they each

succumbed to the intense feeling of pleasure coursing through each of their bodies, flooding their hearts-already overflowing with so much emotion. And suddenly, Damon tossed her

down onto the mattress by her hips and grasped her wrists as he pinned her to the headboard. He held her wrists tightly against the bed post as he quickly picked up another rhythm-

this one much faster than the last.

"_Damon!!!_" Lizette cried as she felt him pulse into her, her toes curling under as he spilt all he had into her. And he fell back against the mattress, spent. Lizette sank down the headboard

and curled into a loose fetal position. She had been sure that the pain would end, and it had… but only for those few blissful seconds in ecstasy.

"Dormere bene, il mio agnello…" Damon mumbled just before he drifted into unconsciousness, he had not seen that she had started to bleed. She clentched at her lower abdomen as she

lay down next to him, draping her free arm across his broad, toned chest. She was sure that with sleep, the pain would leave.. and upon the morrow she would be the future Lady Lizette

Pierét… _Salvatore_…

At least she _should_ have been. Had her entire world not been turned upside down by the events soon to unfold…


	3. Dérobé

**Dérobé**

There was a prolonged silence among the Pierét family the following night as Lizette stood facing her mother and father in the front parlor.

"_Pardon? Non! Cela ne peut pas l'être!"_ Lizette broke the silence with forbidden words, she could not hold her tongue, though she knew it was not her place to speak. Nor did she have the

right to question her father's command.

"We set sail upon the morrow, _Fille._" Repeated the old frenchman, his weary eyes narrowed by the young maiden's inapropriate outburst.

Monsieur Pierét was not an elderly man, but in appearances he seemed ancient. His thinning hair was grayed and his face was deeply creased with wrinkles. His brow took a severe

expression when framing his deep-set eyes, imitating a bottomless river in their ominous depths.

Madame Pierét was a much younger, painfully attractive woman. Her hair was blacker than a raven's feathers, and in the rare occasion that one should find her with her hair out of its

tight loveknot at the nape of her neck-while taming the ebony locks before the mirror in her bedchambers-then their eyes would be stunned by its beauty and glassy sheen. _Her_

eyes,however, were such a unique and intense color, that it was next to impossible to correctly describe them. When exposed to the sunlight, they appeared a hazel-brown. But in the

shade, they were burgundy. And when they flared with anger, they burned with the intensity of a blazing fire. But in the heat of desperation and passion, they tore through one's soul as

they shone with the impossible intensity of a ruby. Lizette had inherited both these features, along with her mother's pale, ivory skin.

And the Madame's eyes currently imitated a firey torch, widened ever so slightly. Her lips pursed into a tight line. Her spine, while already so unnaturally stiff under the unforgiving

suffocation device that was her corset, straightened ever more. Her eyes widened as though shocked and offended by Lizette's questioning.

"Mais… mais-" Lizette was about to protest further when her mother stood, her hands folded tightly together.

"Lizette, non!" she hissed, her very prominent cheekbones highlighted in shadow as her thin face turned slightly upward in a very dignified and feminine manner. "_Ai-je vous rien appris?"_

She closed those impossible eyes and daintily touched a hand to her temple as though she felt faint. "_Maintenant…_" she said quietly after taking a brief moment to regain her composure.

"Leave your poor father to his arrangements now… as your father said, we set sail upon the morrow. Excuse me, dear." Upon excusing herself from her husband, she turned, with a grace

that even Lizette envied her of, and silently exited the room to go lie down, leaving Lizette alone with her father.

"_Père…_ oh Père _please!_" Lizette cried whilst throwing herself at her father's feet. "Please Père! I cannot leave Florence just yet." She begged.

"Absurdité, fille. If I say you shall, then you _shall_. It is as simple as that, Lizette-"

"Oh but Père I cannot!" she pleaded, not meaning to interrupt him but so desperate so as not to leave Italy that she hardly cared for proprioty now.

"_Que dites-vous jeune fille?_" the old man's eyes narrowed in suspiscion as he watched her. "I should hope that this… this… _Salvatore_ bloke has not manipulated your naïve mind?" the way

that he spat Damon's sir name as though it were a swear word in the midst of a Holy mass covered Lizette's body in gooseflesh.

"Père… _s'il vous plait-"_

"_Non!" __He has gone _too_ far!"_ the old man exclaimed as he leaped from his chair in rage, throwing his hands up in the air as he began reciting a long string of well costructed profanities in

french. And his last words before he stormed from the parlor, leaving poor Lizette to weep in her misery, were "_Vous n'êtes jamais à voir ce garçon Salvatore nouveau et c'est mon dernier _

_mot!"_ which were enough to make her heart sink…

"_You are never to see that Salvatore boy again and that is my final word!"_

_**

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**_

Quatre mois plus tard…

…

…

…

…

…_**Four months later…**_

Taking in a deep breath, Lizette smiled out the window of the carriage. She had little money, and had left her reputation as a respectable young maiden behind her in Paris. Now all she

cared for was to be reunited with her Damon…

She had written him every two weeks over the past few months, with or without a responding letter from him. Which was normally the case, because Damon had responded to only the

first two of her letters, and then the communication had failed. She worried that perhaps her letters were not getting through, it was very likely afterall. But now she was prepared to see

him again. Leaving everything behind but a select few of the dresses in her wardrobe and the slippers on her feet.

It seemed to be taking much longer than it really was, she only now was just ending the seventeenth day of travel, but it seemed more like seventeen years. When suddenly… she saw

her destination…

There it was, the great manor still stood and was the same as she had ever known it. She was finally here… and in a matter of minutes, she would be once again in the arms of her

beloved Damon...

"_Mademoiselle __Greta_!" Lizette was quite confident in saying that she had never been so pleased to see the ancient old woman in all her life as she hobbled out of the manor toward the

carriage.

"_Signorina Pierét, no!_" cried the servant woman, her face pale with distress. "Go back to your carriage! There's been an accident!" the old woman tried to shuffle Lizette back into the

buggy, even though her foot had not even touched the ground. But her words terrified Lizette.

"What is it? What has happened, Mademoiselle Greta?" she shoved past the old woman when she did not respond and ran to the door. "_Damon?_" she called, looking left and right as she

ran through the doorway. "_Damon? Stefan?_ _Anybody?!_" she cried, all sounds muted out as she ran down the long, eerie corridors of the manor, her long traveling cloak billowing behind

her and her hair spinning loose from its knot in her distress. "Per favore! C'è qualcuno qui?" she cried in her heavily french-accented italian.

She tore down the corridor that led to Damon's living quarters and grunted as she nudged open the heavy, solid oak door and into the strangely eerie and lifeless room. The doors to his

bed chambers hung open, all the windows were closed-which they never were when the weather was fair as it was.

She ghosted toward the open doors, her breast heaving as she tried to catch her breath, though she had no memory of losing it. She saw the curtains around the four poster were all

closed and she stepped to the side of the bed. Her fingers slowly raised to draw the heavy fabric. She held her breath… and opened the curtains…

Lizette had trouble determining just where the blood curtling scream that tore through the manor was coming from. Just the sound of it wrenched at her heart as she drew the curtains

and gazed down upon the blood-covered body that lay before her on the bed. It wasn't until she looked at the deadman's face that she realized that it was her who had made the

scream. But as she fell to her knees, grasping at the man's icy hand, she had no trouble believing it.

The dead man before her, was her love. Her Damon… a puncture wound having pierced right through his heart. The blade having killed him lay beside the body… painted in the blood of

her beloved.....

* * *

"_Damon!_" Lizette gasped as she woke in a cold sweat, panting heavily. She turned to glance at the digital clock by the bed and sighed. 5:24 am. Relieved, she lay her head back down on

the pillow and stared at the ceiling for a while. It seemed like ages since she had had that dream… but it never failed to terrify her…

No longer feeling tired, she rose from the bed and grabbed a fresh towel that must have been set out by room service before she had returned from hunting the previous evening, and

heading towards the adjoining bathroom for a hot shower....


	4. Je Connais ton Visage

**"Je connais ton visage…"**

**Saturday Evening, August 17**

It was cold out. Uncharacteristically so for the time of year. Mid to late summer usually brought with it refreshing showers and warm air from the south. However, Lizette found herself

surrounded by pedestrians in long pants and jackets, and she heard a lot less of the annoying "_flip-flop-flip-flop"_-ing sound than normal.

Over the past half milenia, Lizette had seen some rediculous fashion trends come and go, and those horrible boned corsets that restricted breathing by at _least_ 98% was definitely

towards the top of that list... Though she had to admit to possibly having flaunted her own sixteen-inch waistline and turning many a young maiden all but _pea-green_ with envy. But the

number one trend at the top of her poor-fashion-trends list was definitely the "flip-flop". Even the name sounded silly! So she was glad on those glorious days where it was much too cold

not to cover ones feet. She herself was more commonly than not wearing her most comfortable shoes that she had yet to discover; a pair of black T-straps with two-inch heels, which she

found surprisingly much easier to walk in than those "ballet flats" or "tennis shoes" that all the other girls seemed to prefer.

Today, on this chilly evening-along with her black T-straps, Lizette fashioned a pair of dark-wash hip hugging jeans and a gray sweater over her black knit-tee. And, for a bit of interest, a

cream colored scarf with intricate black embroidery. She enjoyed fashion, though hypocritical she may be with her complaining, she did to some reasonable degree enjoy it.

From behind her oversized sunglasses, she peered around her vehicle-her beloved flashy red Ford Mustang GT350 Shelby which she bought new in 1965-to inspect the other drivers in

the traffic jam. She caught the eye of a blonde girl of high school age who clearly must have been one of the most popular girls in her clique. The girl didn't look away until her bubblegum

popped all over her face and appeared to awaken her back to reality.

Lizette turned to face the windshield again and smirked. She was used to this reaction from women, along with the envious shade of green that evolved around their auras at the sight of

her.

Lizette turned to inspect the driver to her other side, this one was a man probably two to three years her senior with a straight nose and shaggy red hair. And by the way he quickly

turned his face away from her while his ears turned a bright scarlet, she realized that she must have caught him staring at her. She chuckled to herself and moved ahead with the heavy

traffic... she would be arriving at her destination soon.

She was not entirely sure of what drew her here; she had never felt anything like it before. But just the other night, whilst in the midst of a feeding, she had felt its gentle pull. It

reminded her of a small child tugging on his mother's sleeve, it was so light. But it was certainly there, and her curiosity made it much more difficult to ignore.

However, whatever the reason for it might have been, she arrived on the mostly empty two-lane street with a great big sign that was illuminated with a single streetlight that read:

**Welcome to**

**_Mystic Falls_**

**est. 1854**

and Lizette smiled to herself. She couldn't imagine what might have been drawing her to this small town in Virginia, but she was determined to find out…

Damon sighed with contentment as he dropped the limp girl back to her bed and he licked his lips, feeling quite well fed. As he crawled back out the window, he considered finding a

comfortable tree branch and settling himself in for the night, when he decided to just take a stroll around the block instead. After all, he wasn't quite tired yet…

Immediately upon leaping from the window, he stretched out his arms in a spread-eagle like manner and, suddenly, he literally was spreading his wings, having shifted forms in mid leap.

He had began to head in the direction of the old Fell's Church Cemetary when something caught his eye- or his supernaturally hightened senses: _vampiro_…

He dove down at a 90 degree angle with the ground and twisted his body ever so slightly to find his perch on a broken streetlight, his sensitive eyes searching for their target… which he

was surprised to find was a 1960's Ford Mustang. He strained his eyes to focus on the tinted windshield, trying to get a good glimpse of the driver. But to his utter dismay, he could not

make out more than the silhouette of a young woman. And though he couldn't determine a reason for it, his heart stuttered when he caught a glimpse of the woman's eyes-impossible to

describe in proper format. Still, Damon was able to shake off the unexplained feeling of de jà vous and swoop down from his perch to follow the mysterious maiden in as nonchalant a

manner as he could manage.

He didn't know what drew him to the maiden. After all, if she caused any trouble in Fell's Church, surely the wonderful _Saint Stefan_ would handle it. But something about her had sparked

his interest and his kanines ached in anticipation. Something about her seemed familiar and he thought for sure that he knew her from somewhere… "I know your face…"

"_Je connais ton visage…"_


	5. C'est la Vie

**C'est la Vie**

_

* * *

_

Mon trés cher Damon,

_I could not rest this night of last because I know that you are no longer with me. Gone from my life forever… I cannot conceive of a doubt that what we had was real, and for that I am no longer bitter. Nor can I understand what it was that I had done, or perhaps had not done, to make you unhappy, and I pray that I have shamed you in no manner._

_Oh my dearest love, do accept my most sincere and honorable apology. Be it as it may that my honor be shattered, and my name all but tabooed throughout all of Paris. Oh my love, what shall I do without you along beside to share with me the fruits of life? You, my love, are my life…_

_Oh my sweet, gentle angel, count the passing seconds I shall until we are once again united. Oh, and how I pray that that day shall present itself soon. Be it lay in a heaven or in a hell, for there is no afterlife for me where you do not reside. Oh my sweet lamb, il n'y a pas de paradis pour moi où tu n'es pas._

_Sweet, loveley love, how can I remain to live amongst the coldness and hatred of this cruel world where you shall forever lie beneath it ? How can I begin to count the ways of which my heart flares for thy touch, and burns brighter than any earthly flame. T'woud be simpler done to count the stars in the nightly sky than to count the acts you have commited and caused me to quiver beneath my bodice. But even that will not do; no. For there are not enough stars in all the heavens to represent an appropriate quantity. Even every beat of my heart, from conception in the womb to the last breath left in me has expired, and it beats only for you, cannot justify my love for you._

_Oh my heart, I shall grow aged and weak as the years pass in my being, and you shall remain forever lovely in your tomb… and you, my darling, shall grow no different from you are this day as I set the veil about your body… my letter in your hand. Oh my love, it pains me deep in my heart to see you this way. And just to know that some day soon to come, I shall bare you a child!_

_Oh my dearest lamb, if only I had known but a week sooner. If only I had known! If only the night upon our departure at the soonest! Then perhaps we would be together today and you would still live? Oh all the questions of what could have been, it wounds my heart to dream._

_But the moment I realized my condition, I swear to you my darling, I could not have arrived in Florence sooner. Had I flown there on the back of a être céleste. Oh, but if only I had not been too late… A fortnight the voyage lasted precisely, and oh what a long journey t'was. Upon my arrival to the manor, I all but threw myself to the stone landing, and I slept in your bedchambers. T'as I that cleansed and readied your body for the priest to anoint you in holy lubricants upon the dawn of your wake… this day. And I pen you this letter to accompany you into the afterlife, along with my purest ad deepest affections, and my eternally devoted adoration. Also, my darling, I send with you my heart. Fore it has always been yours and I pray that you should forever hold it dear, as I shall forever yours._

_Oh my heart, my soul, how can I say goodbye to you now, or ever? You are my life. The very air that I breathe and all the love in my heart. C'est la vie, non? You have my word that you child shall be born and cherrished and shall grow in your honor. I promise you, God as my witness, that you will be proud. I love you my dear, sweet angel, my lovely love… I shall never forget you, and oh how I ache for your touch. I must bid you farewell, but do not be sad my darling, my love, fore it is but a temporary farewell._

_À bientôt mon amour._

_Lizette Pierét_

* * *

Damon gently refolded the ancient letter and lay it carefully placed the withered parchment down on the desk, running his hands through his hair as he hung his head. He wanted to strangle himself for not having read the letter when he had found it the moment he'd awoken to find himself veiled inside a great marble coffin, much like the one that he remembered his mother being laid to rest in. He had found it remarkably easy to move the coffin lid and to find himself in a tomb, between two other marble coffins much like his own. One of the two coffins had been much older than his and the other. It also had had the marble carving of a woman atop it… his mother.

He stood and shook his head back and forth, trying to remove those haunting memories of the burial, and being lain to rest between the graves of his poor mother and his damned brother who had sent her there.

Why hadn't he just read the letter? Had he only read- but no. He stopped himself. It could not have made any difference. His mind had already been twisted beyond recognition by his obsession with Katherine that he knew that was why he hadn't read it. Because he'd known all along that it would not have mattered… but then again… she had been _withchild!_ With _his_ child! … Damon was unable to picture himself a father, he never really had been able to. Perhaps a husband once… or twice… he had all but begged Katherine to choose him over Stefan while he had all but forgotten the woman he had pledged himself faithful to already…

_Lizette… Lizette Pierét…._

He had not thought of her in too many ages… he liked to think that it was only because the very essence of her had been too painful for him to bare… but he knew that that was only partially the case. Katherine had blinded him to his _amata piccolo agnello_… and now he was much too late… Hell, he was more than _five hundred years_ too late… He didn't know what had brought him to read Lizette's letter now, but the feeling had started prickling at his conscience ever since he'd caught the glimpse of the mysterious maiden who he had seen driving through town… though nothing made sense nowadays. Perhaps he was just hungry… he'd heard somewhere that Caroline was throwing another one of those parties, and he always found a good candidate or two to at least station his thirst… not to mention he suddenly felt the need for a drink…

He sighed heavily to himself, carefully tucked the letter in the inside breast pocket of his leather jacket and took a couple deep breaths to keep from hyperventalating. He just needed to get this out of his head… he needed to forget… and a couple shots of straight whiskey just might do the trick.

He grabbed his car keys from the hook by the door and was about to step outside when he stopped short. He touched a hand to his heart and felt the folded parchment and closed his eyes for a moment before he took another deep breath and closed the door behind him on his way to the car…


	6. WastedMy Hero

**Wasted/"My Hero…"**

That same evening, in a desperate attempt to put the agitating echoes of past events from her mind, Lizette turned to the humans for her entertainment. Though it was dark, it was only

nine o'clock, and she felt was drawn towards a crowded Bar & Grill that was overflowing with college-aged students. Its tug on her power was hardly different from any other vampire's

magnetic attraction to large crowds. But something _was_ different this time as Lizette parked in the only available space she could find and emerged from the automobile. She was standing

at the front of her car for a brief inspection, her eyes fell on the handicap sign right in front of her spot. Well that certainly explained why such a convenient parking space had been

vacant… But she didn't feel much like finding a new space, she had gotten a little irritable since her last feeding-what had it been? Maybe two or three whole days ago? No wonder her

patience was so strained.

After taking a quick glance in either direction, she wrapped her petite left hand around the steel steak and gave a brief tug… She stowed the uprooted handicap sign behind a few bushes

along the front of the laundrey-mat adjoining the Bar & Grill, humming to herself as she headed for the entrance. And once inside, she soon realized that all the bar stools were occupied-

one of them by a boy and girl who were kissing so feverishly that Lizette had to take a double take just to make sure they weren't doing eachother any permanent damage. But she saw

a space between two boys who were proudly flaunting their Fraternity jackets, and she squeezed in to eye the bartender.

"Excuse me?" she kindly addressed the tall, gangly man behind the county who had a tremendous need of a good shave and at least ten or fifteen years her senior-and perhaps a splash

of cold water to the face. But seeing her appeared to be all the ice water he needed, because he perked right up.

"Why, hello there little lady. What can I get for you?" he asked a little too nicely for Lizette's liking, but she could use a drink.

"Tequila sour, please?" she said sweetly, giving him a feminine smile that caused his entire face to flush a deep red as he prepared the drink for her. He was about to hand it to her when

he suddenly withdrew his arm, an apologetic look on his face as he explained.

"I'm gonna need to see some ID, miss." Lizette rolled her eyes and leaned forward over the bar to look directly into his eyes.

"How about you give me the drink and forget this whole conversation?" she challenged, using just a little mind control to enforce her suggestion and an innocent smile to top it off. His

eyes went blank and he handed her the glass, mumbling a couple incoherent words that mattered little to Lizette, and he got right back to work as though she had not been there-but

with a puzzled sort of expression on his face.

Lizette smirked as she took a sip and turned around to monitor the crowd. It appeared to be just a typical party for the college students, and she had certainly seen her fair share of them

in the past forty-plus years.

At that moment a dark figure suddenly drifted by her, she caught it in peripheral vision and her head shot to find the source. But, much to her disappointment, she could not find one, so

she took another sip. She was getting bored as she searched the many faces, hoping to find one whose mind at least somewhat sparked her interest. Before she realized it, she had

downed her fifth glass and the room was starting to move ever so slightly and she grabbed her head in vain attempts to stop the spinning and she staggered out a back door to vomit,

looking up only to find herself in a dark alley with the dark figure of a man lounging against the brick wall. Or leaning against it for support? She couldn't tell in her current state of mine.

(A/N: Yes, my vampires can get drunk. Lol)

He had startled her and she nearly lost her balance, but the strange man quickly caught her. "Easy there, girl." Lizette could smell the alcohol on his breath, but that was the least of her

worries… she stared up at this mysterious man. She knew him from somewhere. She couldn't recall where she knew him from, but she was certain that she knew him from somewhere…

He had straight, black hair and his oak-leaf green eyes were set deep beneath the frame that his thick black brows created-giving him a severe expression. His nose was long and

narrow, and his jaw was strong and square… she would know him anywhere, and yet she couldn't formulate coherent words from her jumbled-up thoughts. All that she could say in her

heavily intoxicated state, was "My hero…" and she collapsed into his arms…

_**

* * *

**_

A/N: yeah, I know… this one is really short. Sorry, but I had this one stuck in my head all day trying to get it just right. Yay! Two chapters in 1 day! :)


	7. Buzz Kill

**Buzz Kill**

In his heavily intoxicated state, Damon nearly lost his balance as well as she fell onto him and he hit the brick wall on which he had been leaning against before. He inhaled the subtle

flowery aroma, flooding his head and causing it spin and suddenly had the strangest urge to kiss her. He found this odd because kissing was a human thing, for vampires it was no more

than a useful technique to seduce an unwilling donor. Damon figured it was just some sort of side affect from the alcohol, but in any case, he kissed her.

Her lips were soft, as he imagined they would be. And he was further confused by the urge he had to never stop kissing her. Until his lungs threatened to burst and he gasped for air. The

girl wrapped her arms around his neck and molded against him, intertwining her fingers through his hair almost absent mindedly. Damon waited for the blood lust to take over, he could

hear her heart beat and the blood pulsed through her veins in a hypotizing rhythm. He grunted as she suddenly tugged on his hair and forced his head to the side, bringing him out of his

drunken daze. In the split second that followed, he saw her eyes blacken and the erected kanines as she went to strike his throat.

"_Aspetti!_ _Io sono come te!_" he interjected as he felt the razor sharp kanines just faintly graze his throat as she stopped. She pulled back from him and looked at him through heavy lidded

eyes, her brow slightly furrowed.

"_Comme moi?_" she said quietly. "_Un burveur de sang?"_

"_Sì, un bevitore di sangue_." He hated to admit that he had begun to panick, fore he was never anyone or any_thing's_ prey. He, Damon Salvatore, was _always_ the predator…

"_Oh… dans ce cas, pardonnez-moi monsieur, je n'avais pas vu-"_

"Forgive me, but I'm afraid my French is a little rusty…" he said apologetically. She laughed slightly, but then caught her head as she nearly collapsed once again and moaned.

"_Connaissez-vous d'un endroit où je peux rester?"_

"Well, you can stay with me if you would like?" he could only register about two of every three words. "But do you have a car? I seemed to have left mine… somewhere…?" he suddenly

realized that he had no idea of where he had left it. In fact, he had little memory of the last time he had driven it.

"_Oui… dans la rue…"_ she mumbled. Damon could recognize _that_ much.

_On the street…_ "Alright, come on." He said as he took her arm and led her back through the bar, wrapping a secure arm around her waist. When all at once, a Miss Caroline Forbes

confronted him with the angriest of expression he'd seen on her face to date.

"What is _this_, then?" she snapped, her hands on her hips. Realization suddenly washed over Damon as he remembered that Caroline had been his date to the party- his end of a bargain

that he had made with her, but to him had meant no more than a convenient excuse for a free snack. Damon groaned and looked back at Caroline.

"Sorry Caroline, but friends don't let friends drive drunk." He said in a heavily sarcastic voice. "So if you would excuse me now, and _forget all about me being here…_" he said through

narrowed eyes as he enforced it in her dimwitted brain. It only took half a second but all ill feelings rose from Caroline's face and she smiled at him.

"Okay then, so I'll see you tomorrow then?" she asked cheerfully.

"Don't count on it, just _go back to whatever it was that you were doing before_." He added as he walked around her towards the exit.

"Okay, call me!" she called after him before she went back to sit with some of her friends as though nothing had happened, just as she always did. But as for the drunk vampire girl

leaning on his arm, Damon was surprised at how obediantly the she walked with him. When he got to the street lined with cars, he looked around and frowned. "Which one is yours?" he

asked.

"The red mustang…" she mumbled, clumsily retrieving the keys from her pocket and giving them to him. He spotted the old 1965 mustang and raised his eyebrows in approval, but then

frowned in confusion. He had been sure that that spot had been marked for handicap drivers and he looked at the hole in the concrete for a moment and laughed.

"Couldn't find a better spot huh?" he snickered.

"I'd already gotten out of the car." She shrugged slightly in indifference. Damon snickered to himself as he helped her into the passengers seat before jogging around to the drivers side

and getting in, looking around and admiring the interior.

"Where'd you find this one, and in such good shape?" he wondered after igniting the engine and listening to its smooth humming.

"Some small town just north of Albany New York in 1965…" Damon looked at her in surprise once again.

"You never fail to amaze me." He said as he sped down the nearly deserted street, heading in the direction of the Old Wood.

"Comment cela?" she mumbled.

"Well, first the almost-bite, then the on and off French and English thing, the car, the parking space, and now you're telling me you're at _least_ fifty or so years old? So start talking." He

said, suddenly fascinated.

"I am well older than that." She laughed.

"Oh?" he glanced over at her for a moment before back out at the road. "How old, may I ask then? And please don't slap me, I tend to get hit a lot when I ask women about their ages."

He added in quickly, making her laugh again.

"I am about… five hundred and seventy years old now. Dates were not so well recorded when I was born and it's hard to keep up with the years when there's so many to keep track of."

She explained.

Damon raised his eyebrows in surprise once again. "Really? That's incredible. I grew up during the Renaissance era, in Florence Italy."

"Oh? I speant much of my childhood in Florence, at my family's summer home. Though I was born, raised and educated in Paris."

Damon frowned, this was sounding _far_ too familiar… "How did you die, exactly…?" he was afraid of what her answer might be, but he had no idea why.

She hesitated and looked straight out the windshield. "Childbirth…"

There was a two second pause that ended when Damon slammed on the breaks and she barely had enough reaction time to catch herself from flying out the windshield.

"_What the hell are you doing here Lizette?!"_ Damon cried, turning to face her in agonizing fury.

Lizette turned to look at him, shaken by his outrage and suddenly felt strangled by what she saw. It was him… how could she have not seen it before…? How drunk could she possibly

have been…? She could not speak, she could only stare at him in shock. Her hand slowly raised to grasp her throat in an absent minded remark brought on from her years of etiquette

and propriety. How could this be? This must be another dream?

"_D… Damon…?"_ her voice shook with sobs. "_Peut-elle vous être…?"_

Damon shook with anger and he grasped the wooden steering wheel in fury, this could not be happening to him… not now. She was supposed to have died centuries ago… how could she

still _be_ here?

"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be dead!" he cried as he thrashed in his outrage, he had never imagined that she could still be alive… the thought had never crossed even

his wildest dreams, and he had had some pretty crazy dreams in his time… But _this_ was impossible! He started to recite a well ordered string of profanities in quite a few diverse

languages, and some of them, Lizette did not recognize as any earthly jargon. And tears streamed down her face as she stared at him in shock, shaking her head in disbelief. No… surely

this could not be real… _surely_ this was no more than just another bad dream… But it hurt like reality, her heart ached more like the way it did upon awakening from her dreams… this was

real… as impossible as it was, it was _real_…


	8. Katherine Pierce

**Katherine Pierce**

Within the hour, Damon and Lizette came across a vacant house along the outskirts of town near the Old Wood. It was remote from the rest of Fell's Church and fashioned the

appearance that it had not been occupied in at least fifty odd years. Lizette stumbled up the steps of the front porch and retracted a hairpin from her raven waves to pick the lock and in a

matter of seconds, the door swung open.

"Are you sure no one lives here?" Lizette asked as she looked through the doorway and inspected the sheet-covered furniture in the parlor adjacent to the entrance hall.

"Trust me, Lizzy; if anyone has lived here in the past few decades, I _think_ I would have noticed." He said as he removed her carry-on bag from the trunk of the Mustang and slammed the

hood.

"Will you be _careful?_ It's not exactly vampire-proof you know!" Lizette hissed back at him. He held up his hands in an "I surrender" manner and snickered. Lizette rolled her eyes and

turned back to the doorway. She placed a hand on either side of the frame and looked down at the hardwood floors on the opposite side. Countless times had she not been able to enter

through a doorway and quite frankly, she was tired of it.

"Will you just go in already?" Damon snapped impatiently, startling her and causing her to stumble through the doorframe and down to the floor with a muted thud.

"_Oof!_" she massaged her tailbone and glared back up at the snickering Damon as he closed the door shut behind him. "Was that necessary?" she growled as she got back to her feet, still

rubbing her sore backside.

"Well if you didn't have to be so goddamn paranoid, then maybe I'd wait for you to go first. But until then, Lizzy, you're gonna have to move a little faster than that."

"Well maybe _you_ should learn to be more patient. And stop calling me _Lizzy!_ I've always hated that name and you know it!" she retorted. It had been cute when Stefan called her Lizzy

when he was three and couldn't pronounce her name properly yet, but when Damon had started calling her that just to pick on her, it wasn't quite so cute.

"Arrogant bâtard..." She mumbled as she turned toward the old staircase to explore the house.

Damon snickered and dropped her bag by the door, but he froze when he heard something that sounded like breaking glass…

Lizette's head snapped up at the sound as well and in the next second, she was kneeling by the bag and quickly retrieving several papers and folders from it, looking for the source of the

sound. Damon was about to assume that perhaps it had been a false alarm when he heard her breath catch in her throat and he winced, turning to see what had broken.

He was confused at first and couldn't tell just what it was that Lizette was now cradling in her arms, but he knelt across from her to look closer and saw that it was an ancient document

of some kind framed in an antique casing. But he had only caught a glimpse of the document inside before she held it to her breast.

"Lizette… I… I'm sorry, I… I didn't realize…" he rubbed the back of his neck as he struggled to form a coherent sentence.

"It's okay… it's only the glass that broke… it didn't tear…" her voice shook with her nerves as she tenderly fingered the shattered fragments of glass now falling into her lap and she

delicately placed the aging document in her lap to further examine it. This gave Damon a proper opportunity to observe it…

Once again, he was shocked by it. He didn't know what he might have been expecting it to be, but it certainly was not this; It was a baptismal certificate…

_

* * *

_

"**Nel nome del Padre e del Figlio e dello Spirito Santo."**

**_Il Duomo di Firenze_**

**Denominazion: **Damon Pierét Salvatore

**Data du Nascita: **Il 27 di Agosto, 1543

**_Battezzati_**

**Data: **Il 31 di Agosto, 1543

**Firma: **Prete Giulio Romano

* * *

"Lizette…?" Damon suddenly felt as though he was being suffocated and he tugged on the collar of his shirt and swallowed. "Damon… _Pierét_-_Salvatore_…?" his voice cracked on the last

syllable and he swallowed hard against the lump in his throat as Lizette nodded.

"He was your son… and mine…" she whispered as a single tear leaked down her cheek. Absently, Damon reached up and gently wiped the tear away, his touch as delicate as though

scared she might break. "He was so little…" she continued as she sobbed. "and so fragile… and so… _beautiful…_ I never knew a newborn babe could look so like his father… until I saw

him…" her voice shook as she spoke and it made Damon's heart ache to hear it.

"_Where were you?!"_ she suddenly cried. Damon started, shaken by her sudden change in tone. He opened his mouth to respond but he did not know what to say. Where _had_ he been?

Even he did not know for sure. "I _died_ for you!" she exclaimed. Damon's heart clenched and he looked down for a moment, running a hand through his hair momentarily, unsure of what to

tell her or what to do. What _could_ he do? Apologize? Beg for forgiveness? He had not done so in ages, and certainly not since he had seen her last more than likely…

"What do you want me to say?" his voice was quiet and he could not bring himself to look at her… fore he knew he would break.

"Tell me the truth Damon… I know about your duel with Stefan! And I know about Katherine!" Damon winced, how could she know? How could she possibly know? But she continued.

"How could you do something like this?!" she cried. "What happened to the Damon Salvatore that _I've_ always known? The one that told me I was the only lover he would ever need; the

one who asked me to _marry_ him?" She took his hand and placed it over her heart, her voice taking on a gentle tone. "Le Damon qui j'ai donné mon cœur à…"

Damon stared at her hand over his as it lay over her left breast, he could feel the gentle beating of her heart… a rhythm that he had so deeply ached to hear again…

At that moment, he wanted to kiss her until she was breathless. He had not once wished for mortality in all the centuries since his reawakening, but suddenly now he found himself

praying that he could once again be the man he had once been so long ago. He wanted to make love to her as he once had so many lifetimes ago… but now he couldn't… and he never

would again…

"The truth…" he began, thinking back to those last months of his mortal life… back to those memories of Katherine Pierce…

* * *

"_Aw... come on Katherine, you can't run forever!" called Stefan as he chased after a giggling Katherine Pierce around the manor courtyard. She squealed as he almost caught her hand but slipped._

"_Catch me Slowpoke!" she cried when suddenly Damon jumped out from behind a tall tree and caught her, making her squeal in delight._

_Stefan groaned as he came to rest a couple feet away, hands on his knees in attempt to catch his breath. "I thought you wouldn't return until this late evening?" he questioned his older brother, _

_who still held the beautiful Katherine all to himself._

"_I escaped early when I caught wind that a certain Lady Pierce would be coming to call again this fine, autumn day." Damon winked at Katherine as she hid her pinkened face behind her thin, pale _

_fingered hands._

"_Oh Damon, _siete uno di questi l'incantatore_..." __Katherine giggled as she stretched up on her toes to kiss his haw, making Stefan want very badly to rip the arrogant smirk right off his face…_

_Katherine was still giggling as she linked said in a teasing voice, "Both such handsome, charming gentlemen…" she sighed lightheartedly. "How can a girl ever decide…" she giggled once again and _

_linked arms with each brother. "Now boys, before you two start another quarrel over me, I'm feeling a slight headache coming on. Won't you two dears be my angels and escort me back to the _

_manor?" she said as she flirtatiously nudged her head against each of their shoulders, smiling innocently up at each of them…_

* * *

Damon proceeded to tell Lizette of how he and Stefan had indeed quarreled over her many times before finally insisting that she make her decision. He told her how Katherine had

promised to meet the brother of her choice in his bedchambers before the clock struck _mezzanotte_… and of how Katherine had visited both of them that night… and of the duel upon the

following dawn and searching the manor and the grounds for her, only to find that dark pile of ash around her new gown and her ring set neatly on the grass. He told Lizette of how

Katherine had tricked him and Stefan, and how they had been fooled by her charade, and of how he and Stefan had finally found her, imprisoned in the tomb far below all of Fell's Church,

and of how he and Stefan had truly finished her off… There was not a detail he missed or left out, even of receiving and discarding of her letters…

"All but the one I found in my burial shroud…" he said quietly as he slowly withdrew the letter from his breast pocket and showed it to her. Lizette took the letter in trembling hands and

carefully unfolded the ancient parchment, rereading her own words written so long ago. Once finished, she looked back up at him and stared deep into his eyes for a long while. Damon

thought that she might kiss him without ever saying a word, but she didn't. In fact, she did almost the opposite of that…

She slapped him.

Damon grunted at the sting of the slap, but did not retaliate in any form. Fore he knew he deserved much worse than she could ever give him. But then, she shocked him again. And this

time, she did kiss him…


	9. La Practica Rende Perfetti

"**la practica rende perfetti…"**

Lizette all but threw herself at Damon when she kissed him. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed his mouth much like the way they had once only done in secret. But this time,

there was no shame or holding back. And Damon, so stunned by the kiss, was unable to react quickly enough and fell back against the floor, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist as

he kissed her back, causing her to giggle. Upon hearing her giggle for the first time in more than five hundred years, Damon smirked against her lips and surrendered to instinct. And in

doing so, he ran his hands up the back of her blouse and traced the contours of her spine until he found the clasp of her bra.

"Dear _God_, please say this is going to be easier to get off than that damned corset…" he mumbled against the warm flesh along her collar. Lizette laughed and moaned as he rolled over

to pin her to the floor and slowly unbuttoned her blouse to reveal the lacey strip of ivory fabric that covered her breasts, causing her to arch her back off the floor to reach him. Unsure of

how to touch her, he kissed the space between her breasts and then fingered along her spine to unclasp her bra.

He couldn't describe it… it was all so foreign to him. He had experienced these feelings before… and yet they were all still so new to him… She unfastened his belt as she breathed heavily

against his throat in desire… _"Faire l'amour avec moi, Damon…" _She whispered in his ear as she kissed along the line of his jaw, much like the way she had done the first time she had

asked him to make love to her. And he so wanted to, but he did not know if he could…

"I… I'm sorry, but I- I'm afraid this is all still very foreign to me-" Lizette interrupted him, placing a finger to his lips to silence him and then with a kiss. He did not know how she did it,

what sort of enchantment she had placed him under, but he hoped that she never lifted this impossible spell. These strange waves of pleasure washed over his body as she kissed him

and he wanted more... he wanted to kiss more than just her mouth and to touch more than her face… She made him feel like a man again… as though it were just the way it had once

been… where all that was important was that he loved her. Back in the days when that was enough, back when their love was all that mattered. For the first time in half a millennia, there

was no vampire present. Fore he was a man, and she was a woman, just the way they had once been. As of this moment, he was a young man once again, not a day over twenty-six…

and she was but the same young maiden that had once fallen so passionately in love with him. As of now, that was all that mattered… and he wanted her. In any way, shape, or form

that a man could ever want a woman… and he suddenly felt that he had the power to take her as a woman…

It was very much the same as the first time, and yet it was nothing like it, it was all the better… they shared blood as they lay naked in eachother's arms. After having somehow ended up

in an upstairs bedroom somewhere in the heat of their passion… Though neither Damon nor Lizette could recall for sure just when they had made the move up the stairs, having been so

tightly embraced by their desires, they all but left reality behind them as they floated into oblivion...

Lizette lay on her side on the bed, gazing out at the full moon outside the window. Damon lay by her side, his arm wrapped round her waist in a protective mannor and his face nuzzled

into her raven locks. Lizette was absently tracing random shapes into his arm with her fingertips. Her mind was wondering, as it always was. She was reliving the last time he had held

her in his arms this way. She remembered the last night she had spent with him… she had been human… and he had been dead… A tear leaked from her eye as she was haunted by the

memories of laying on the bed beside his body… and taking his hand and placing it on the slight bump on her lower abdomen… and the words that she had whispered to his lifeless form…

not knowing that had she only waited for another fortnight, he would live and breathe again… more or less… though clearly, _Destin_ had had other plans…

She was amazed by what they had done… by what they had accomplished… afterall, vampires could not procreate, therefore they could not… well… _fornicate_… but still, they had somehow

managed such an impossible task as this… They had made love, and once again, she had cried… and once again, he tried to apologize, though nearly on the verge of tears himself. And,

once again, she hushed him with a kiss and said, "Don't be sorry, my lamb. Afterall… _La practica rende perfetti…"_ and how very right she was… Afterall, with a little practice, they just might

accomplish perfection… or at least whatever perfection truly exists in a world such as this one. Lizette's mind continued to wander aimlessly through the unconscious dreamland that

seldom quieted in her restless thoughts and she reconciled in the countless memories that to this day continued to haunt her…

According to ancient texts and manuscripts that date back to the sixteenth century and earlier, there is an old legend, set in Florence that tells the tale of a young maiden who loses her

beloved in battle… Upon receiving word of her beloved's death, the young maiden removes herself from the rest of the world, and for a fortnight was left undisturbed. T'was only upon the

fourteenth evening, post the wake and burial, that a young servant girl dared to intrude upon the grieving maiden's solitude. Though was only to find that the young maiden was gone,

and was nowhere to be seen or heard from for another three days… when her body was discovered face down in the grassy terrain by the entrance to her lover's tomb…

But the story leaves out so many crucial elements and has been so severely twisted throughout the centuries that it scarcely tells the same tale... It was this very story that became the

origin to countless tragic love stories throughout all of history… but what no one seems to remember now is that this original story came from reality… And to start off the more accurate

telling of the ancient tale, the young maiden was not discovered outside of her lover's tomb… in fact, she was not discovered anywhere. It was just assumed that she had fled the country

to mourn her lover's death elsewhere, perhaps to her birthplace of what is now Paris? It was not until about the seventeenth century that people began to reshape the maiden's

mysterious disappearance into her death. But that was not accurate either, no. The young maiden remained in Florence until the date of her death indeed, though it was not so quick to

reach her as so stated in the ancient tale. Fore the young maiden, though not married, had been withchild and had therefore been banished from her home in Paris. And though she had

been quick to return to Florence, she had not been quick enough, fore her lover had already fallen in a final duel… and so once again, she was left alone… and she would remain so 'til

come round the next harvest-moon, where she should birth a son to be named for her dear departed lover…

And it was these memories that still haunt her to this day… though she had died less than a fortnight post the child's baptism due from the many complications brought upon her from the

child's birth, she had never really remained that way… Her kind had grown through many different names throughout all of recorded history and long before it, "les morts sans repos" or

the "restless dead" being one of the more commonly used during that time... and yet the memories of the ancient babe continued to haunt her, still fresh in her mind as the day she had

birthed him… and would remain so for all of eternity…

* * *

_Lizette prayed for death as another wave of excruciating pain tore through her body, already so weak from the traumatic loss of blood. She imagined that there was a midwife there to console her, _

_but there was none. No one was with her… and no one knew that she was here… over the past months, she had watched one by one as the servants left the great manor, the last to leave was _

_Mademoiselle Greta, though even she had been gone for a full moon cycle now… Lizette truly was alone… and terrified…_

_She had settled herself in Damon's bedchambers on the night upon her arrival from Paris, and was now much too weak to move anywhere else. She had prepared herself for this moment as much _

_as she could, though she knew nothing of childbirth… all that she knew she had learned from her readings of la sacré Bible… and also what Mademoiselle Greta had said…_

"_You may use this to cut the _cord_..." she had said as she handed Lizette a dagger with inscriptions in the blade that she could not read. And she had had no idea just what "cord" that _

_Mademoiselle Greta had been talking about, and still did not. Nevertheless, she had boiled the dagger and kept it on the table that she had moved by the bed. On the table, she also kept freshly _

_washed linens to wrap the babe in, a water basin and a sponge to keep her own temperature down and whatever other use it may come in later… But now it was time… she could feel it… and _

_suddenly,_

"_Arrrggghhhh…!" Lizette cried as the contractions grew stronger and she grasped to hold onto her own legs. She had never known such pain as this, she felt surely she would have fainted by now, _

_but this was no time to be ladylike! For God's sake she was having a baby! She screamed again and again and _again_… for a total of eight and a half hours, she screamed and cried and prayed and _

_all but begged for the pain to end… when at last…_

"_Oh! Oh…!" she gasped as she saw the babe's tiny head emerge and she continued to push, despite the excruciating pain, she was in a state of shock as the babe's shoulders came out and she _

_grasped the tiny babe's torso and gently pulled it the rest of the way out and onto her naked breast. She stared at the tiny infant babe that she, incredibly, had carried in her womb for all this _

_time… and she was amazed by the wonder of it all… and it was a boy…_

"_Oh… Damon… un fils! Je vous ai donné un fils!" she wept quietly as she tenderly stroked the babe's black hair, which had clearly been inherited from his father. His eyes were blue, yet that could _

_mean anything… Fore most babes had blue eyes when they were born… she remembered the midwife saying that to her as a child when Stefan had been born. She and Damon had leaned over the _

_cradle to get a good look at the newest addition to the Salvatore family. She had said noted that the infant had had blue eyes. "Bleu! Ses yeux sont bleus! Comme madame!" and she had clapped _

_her hands when the midwife had told her "You know, Signorina, that most babies have blue eyes when they are born…" So Lizette had no way of knowing just what color the babe's eyes would _

_turn out to be; only time could tell. But she so wished that he would have inherited Damon's …_

_She grasped the damp sponge from the table by the bed and tenderly wiped at the mucusy substance that covered the tiny babe, cuddling him in her arms, and stroking his tiny features. "Mon _

_bébé adoré…" she cooed…_


	10. Stubborn

"**Stubborn as a… me…"**

_

* * *

_

Friday morning, August 23

* * *

Half a fortnight passed by quite peacefully, as Damon and Lizette enjoyed their time together. It felt like old times when they were with one another, and Damon suddenly realized that

he was becoming the man whom he had so long thought to be dead inside of him… the man whom he had once been… the man that Lizette had always thought so fondly of…

She even showed him photographs from as far back as the summer of 1960… "This was taken, I believe, in Georgia sometime in late June… there was talk of war back in those days,

though _even I_ never took any of those rumors seriously… though, I'm sure you can clearly see now just how wrong _I_ was." She giggled slightly as she motioned to the earliest of his few

photographs of _him_ dressed in Confederate uniform with hair that fell to his shoulders and a beard that had, at _that_ time, been considered fashionable.

Damon defended it though, "Hey, I'll have you know that I was one of Atlanta's most _elligable bachelors_ when that picture was taken. Dozens of women were _devastated_ to see _me_ go to

war." But Lizette only laughed.

"Oh, I'm sure they were throwing themselves out in the streets at your feet." She teased.

"Ha ha," Damon fake-laughed and lightly pinched her side much like the way he had always done in "retaliation" for her teasings. Lizette squealed and swatted his hand, like she had

always done, and pulled out a new photograph. "Oh… _this one_ is my favorite…" she whispered softly, admiring the picture for a moment before handing it to Damon. "This was taken in

Paris by _Monsieur William Ronis_, in 1942… he was just starting out as a photographer and he asked my permission to photograph me once…" she explained, smiling fondly at the old

memory. "he was a sweet man… he only recently passed away too…" she said, looking up at Damon's face as he gazed down at the photograph in awe.

"You're beautiful." He surprised her by saying it, and he was no longer looking at the photograph, but directly into her eyes. Lizette looked up to meet his gaze and turned to hide her

blush and Damon touched her face gently and lifted it ever so slightly so that she was looking into his eyes again. He didn't say anything for a while, only looking at her… emotion

reflecting in his eyes… those eyes... Then he surprised her again, and he kissed her softly. His lips were soft and gentle, and he touched her so tenderly, like she might break. Lizette fell

back to the floor slowly, her fingers intertwined in his hair as she kissed him. He moved to nip at her throat and she giggled. But then he stopped kissing her and looked at her again.

"Wait, I want to show you something." He said, and she nodded.

"Okay…"

* * *

"Damon come on! Just tell me what it is!" Lizette laughed as Damon led her through the Old Wood.

"Aw… you don't want me to spoil the surprise do you?" he teased, holding tightly onto her hand as he led her onward and gave her a quick wink over his shoulder, causing her to giggle

behind her petite hand. Damon had been delighted in discovering that she still unconsiously exercised her old mannerisms and habits from their human lives, a feature in women that he

had not seen much of since those feminists came out around the turn of the twentieth century. But Lizette's ladylike demeanor had remained all but untouched by the feminism ideals of

modern day women.

"_Damon_…" she stuck out her bottom lip as though to pout and looked up at him from beneath her long, black lashes. But Damon only laughed and kissed her forehead.

"All in good time _piccolo agnello_…" he promised before turning back to take a look. "We're getting close." He said as he reached around Lizette and covered her eyes with his hands. "No

peeking." This made Lizette giggle again and she followed his direction while taking care to mind her footing. Damon smirked in spite of himself and stopped when they stood before it.

"Alright…" he paused to make a dramatic effect. "drumroll please…" he joked, Lizette laughed. "now… open your eyes." And she did just that.

Lizette gasped at the grandeur of the ancient ruins, "_Oh Damon! C'est magnifique!_ _C'est l'église de Fell?" _she asked, looking back to Damon as he nodded, grinning with pride that she liked

the surprise.

"Correct, this is _indeed_ the church of Fell. Thomas Keeping Fell was his full name," He said, then added. "and Honoria as well, of course." He chuckled as Lizette's face lit up.

"_Sa femme, oui?"_ she asked and Damon nodded.

"Yes, Honoria was his wife." He confirmed, smiling as he watched her tiptoe her way up the stone steps-or at least what was left of them-and to the ancient archway where the oak

doors had once hung. Lizette carefully put one foot through the threshold while looking intently at what had once been the sanctuary. She looked all around, turning around in circles as

she savored every detail. There was very little architecture left from this long ago.

It was dawn now and the sun was on the horizon. For a moment, Damon's eyes widened in fear and he moved toward Lizette. "The dawn is upon us…" he said quickly, frightened for her

sake. Lizette turned to look at him and they stared at once another for a short while. "Have you no stone?" she asked him, suddenly realizing that they had not left the shelter of indoors

in all their time spent together. Instantaneously they each held out their left hands. Upon each of their center fingers was in place a ring with a large, impossibly blue stone in the silver

casing, and they matched.

Lizette laughed in spite of herself, "You had me worried, _mon amour_." She giggled ever so softly, and Damon was relieved.

"I would have given you my ring before I let you leave my life again…" his voice was soft, his eyes were full of emotion, brimmed with the sincerity of his words. Lizette felt a tear fall from

her eyes as they both recalled the very same memory… of when she had been forced to leave him the first time… and oh, how her heart had ached that day, so long ago now, that she

had left Florence...

Damon could remember exactly the number of tears that had fallen from her eyes as he had kissed her in the street for all the people to see. Of course he had been heavily ridiculed for

that very action in the weeks following the scandal_ fore people did not kiss in public back in those times, especially not with so many witnesses about.

Since that day so long ago Damon often smirked at the memory of all the shocked faces; he had counted precisely five women to have feigned a fainting spell, which was the right and

proper thing to do when having witnessed such impropriety. Kissing on the mouth was considered indecent and inappropriate in the years of the Italian Renaissance, and he remembered

especially the scrutiny offered by Stefan (who had accompanied Damon and Lizette into town, acting as something of a chaperone for the sake of her family name's reputation) in

particularly. The poor boy's mouth had hung ajar as the Pierét's carriage had driven away and Damon had snickered as he turned away. But speaking of Stefan…

"Hi Mom and Dad," Damon heard the voice all too soon-it was only a couple of yards away at the graveyard, and he knew precisely who it was… and he had forgotten to mention that

very person to Lizette… which was definitely a _big_ mistake… and Lizette, knowing nothing of Elena Gilbert, saw only one thing. Katherine.

Damon cursed and Lizette hissed. Her pupils dilated at an abnormal rate and extent and her kanines erected immediately upon the arousal of her highly sensitive instincts and senses.

But before Damon had the chance to grab her, Lizette had taken off at full speed directly at the blissfully ignorant Elena Gilbert and something equally fast-if not a single degree off-

charged at Lizette from the left.

"_No!"_ Damon cried as he reached the incident a hundredth of an instant after it happening, and the entire scene sped through in fast forward and it was near impossible to determine

what was happening in what order- Elena was dashing through the forest towards the brawl, screaming Stefan's name as he fought to plunge the solid wooden stake through Lizette's

torso and Damon all the while trying to pry his brother off of her.

"_Je vais te tuer! Je vais vous tuer pour ce que vous avez fait!"_

"Take your hands off her!"

"No! She's too dangerous to be left alive!"

"Stefan! Stefan _stop it!"_

"_Vous gâté, salope égoïste!"_

"She thought it was Katherine!"

"Katherine's dead!"

"Stefan!"

"_Je te déteste! Je te déteste! Je te déteste!_ _Je te déteste!_"

"Lizette! You are _not_ helping!"

"Lizette?! _Lizette Pierét?!"_

"_Mais bien sûr! Qui d'autre avez-vous pensé qu'il était idiot stupide?!"_

"Lizette! Is that _really_ necessary?!"

"_Stefan!"_

"_**ÇA SUFFIT!**__"_

Lizette finally was able to throw Stefan off of her and Damon grabbed him by the collar and pinned him to a tree, his eyes were menacing. "When I say leave her alone, _you do it!"_ he

exclaimed before throwing Stefan aside and turning to reach Lizette, as Elena scrambled to collect Stefan in her arms and to hold onto him protectively.

"Are you alright Lizette? Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?" Damon frantically asked as he ran his shaking hands around her throat and shoulders and face, looking for any injuries. But

Lizette threw him off as well, fuming with anger and confusion and humilation, and pure outrage.

"_J'ai dit ça suffit!"_ she cried, reclaiming her footing and standing up, fists clentched at her sides as her hold frame shook with rage, her eyes were a blaze of flames. _"Vous avez dit _

_Katherine était morte!"_ her voice shook with rage, the sky overhead darkened as thunderclouds tumbled across the previously clear skyline.

"Katherine _is_ dead!" Damon interjected, "That girl is not Katherine! I promise you, Lizette!" he pointed toward Elena as she clung to Stefan's shoulders, as he was now crouched

defensively in front of her, ready to protect her, fangs bared. "That is Elena Gilbert! She is a human! She lives in Fell's Church! She was born seventeen years ago! She is not Katherine

Pierce!" Damon exclaimed, carefully walking towards Lizette, his arms outstretched in a defensive manner. But Lizette still shook with fury.

"_Vous voulez me faire croire que cette fille, qui pourraient être jumeaux avec Katherine, est comme ça par hasard?!"_ she cried. Damon frowned, oh… of all times to not understand what she

had said… of course it had to be this time. He cursed under his breath, trying to piece together what he had understood. You want… _something…_ something, something, something…

_daughter?_ No_, _girl, yea that's right_…_ something, something, something… _twin… Katherine…as it is_… something_… chance…?_ Damon cursed again and watched her, trying to be careful.

He certainly didn't want to offend her, or to anger her any more than she already was, so he took it safe. "Um… yes?" not the best answer.

"_Vous maudissent, Damon Salvatore…"_ she snarled.

"Oh, _come on!_ What do you _want_ me to say?! _God!_ You are _so_… stubborn, Lizette!"

"_Vous êtes l'un de parler, Damon…"_ Lizette snapped back, and Damon understood _that. You're one to talk…_ Damon growled and was about to scream something else at her when they were

interrupted by Stefan, who appeared confused as to whether be concerned or amused by the situation.

"Can we discuss this in perhaps a more private setting?" he suggested, still standing as something of a shield in front of Elena to guard her from harm. But Lizette refused.

"I'd rather not." She snapped, quickly adjusting her blouse and sweater before turning and heading off in the opposite direction.

"And where do you think you're going?" Damon called to her, an eyebrow arched.

"To the river!" she answered over her shoulder.

"What for?!"

"To make a _hole_ in it- I'm going for a walk!" of course her first comment had been pure sarcasm, and Damon scoffed, mumbling profanities under his breath as Lizette disappeared from

view.

"My _God_ Stefan! I'm telling you, I'm done! I'm _through_ with this! That Lizette, she's as stubborn as a… as a… a…"

"Stubborn as a _what_, exactly, Damon?"

"um, well… she's as stubborn as a… well, _me…_ I guess…"

Stefan laughed. "That she is, Damon. That she is…"

_**

* * *

**_

**A/N: Hey, sorry for the long wait between updates. This chapter took a bit more research than the others, AND I tried to make it a lot longer since a couple other chapters**

**_were really short. But anyhow, I hope you enjoy and please review! You all are my inspiration!_**


	11. Rendezvous

**Rendezvous**

Later that evening…

_

* * *

_

Dear Diary,

_Okay, I know I've said this before. _Countless times_ before. But I just can't shake this awful feeling that something horrible is going to happen again. And I have no idea what's causing it._

_Also, though I hate to say it, I have this feeling that it's something to do with Damon. And I hate to accuse him. Especially after all he's been through- everything he's told me, and especially all that he keeps hidden. Of course, I know that Damon has a whole other side to him that even I haven't found and his life is full of secrets that he apparently is willing to do anything to keep hidden. But what if that secret is something bigger than anything that I, or even Stefan, could ever have imagined? _

_I can see how it hurts him, and I can clearly see why he wants to forget. To reopen those five hundred year old wounds, for him, can't be any less painful than ripping his heart out… And I do care about him and I want to help him… because I hate to see him so hurt, but I think- he just might be beyong helping now. I just don't know what to do…_

_Stefan is with him now, I'm at the boarding house and Stefan said that Damon needed to vent in a safer area than in here; I'm just too breakable now… It's been about three hours since they went downstairs-_

_

* * *

_

Friday, August 23-late afternoon

Elena put her pencil down and looked up from her spot at the writing desk in Stefan's room at the boarding house as the door opened. Stefan himself finally emerging through the door, closely followed by Damon-who immediately took up his pacing again. Stefan stopped only a short distance from her by the shuttered window. A single lamp illuminated the room, giving off an eerie golden glow that made the space feel smaller and heavier. Stefan said nothing, and he did not speak to her, only catching her eye in the instant he entered the room, his eyes apologetic. His stance was wide, his hands clasped together behind his back at rest as he watched Damon pace from wall to wall and only breaking his silence when he could get a word in between Damon's ranting. They had been at this for a while now, but they had been downstairs away from Elena while Damon released the majority of his frustration at a safe enough distance that he couldn't really hurt her or anyone particularily close to that area.

"And how could she know about Katherine in the first place? She was in Paris throughout the duration that Katherine had been with _us!_" Damon exclaimed, he seemed to be almost panicked in a way, Elena was confused. _He must mean that girl from this morning_, she assumed as Stefan spoke.

"Yes, but I was not aware of any vampires being near Florence in 1543, and certainly not in the late summer… it just does match up. Who could have changed her?" he questioned. Damon shrugged indifferently, shaking his head in thought before resisting his pacing,

"She didn't say… only that he-" suddenly his face lit up like a light as a thought occurred to him. "Klaus," he said, then quickly adding as Stefan almost interrupted "Klaus had been in the area at that time, I think somewhere around Venice… or maybe it wasn't even Klaus, but another of the originals. Because I played a major roll in those _free companies_ at that time, remember that? And we made sure that there were no _bred_ vampires in various locations, but an _original_ cannot be tracked!" the excitement in his eyes was brilliant, like a child on Christmas, thought Elena. She could vaguely remember Klaus, it had been so long ago now- a different lifetime.

Stefan looked concerned. "Does that mean that we are dealing with _another_ original?" _he_ could remember everything from when Klaus had come to Fell's Church bloodthirsty and hungry for revenge… it had almost cost him his last connection to Elena- who had already been dead for six months by the time Klaus was discovered. But Damon disagreed.

"No. Lizette said that _this_ man was killed sometime in the nineteenth century- sometime before the American Civil War I'm sure because she only came here from Europe in the winter of 1860… and by then, he was already cold in his grave…" he paused. "so to speak."

_Lizette… _that_ was her name._ Elena noted as she struggled to keep up… she turned to look back at her diary entry and reread it again. Now she was certain that she'd hit the nail on the head about Damon's secret. But what could it be…

_Tuesday evening-sundown, August 27_

Lizette wandered aimlessly through the Old Wood as the sun began to set over the horizon- she could see the pinkening sky through the thick canopy of trees overhead. Her intentions for coming here were not clear to even her, and she was not sure what she was searching for- though she knew she was searching for something… but she knew she needed something right now… though she refused to give in to the pain and admit it, she needed her baby… it was August 27 at sundown… the exact time that she had given birth… today was his birthday…

And this year, just like every year, she wept. Alone. She had escaped to be alone, no matter how much it ached because she refused to allow her own suffering to bring pain to anyone else that she cared about. And she just wandered until she was far too deep in the forest to hear any of the noises of the town and she was left alone in a peaceful silence for a long time… until she came across something that she should have seen coming but somehow had missed… and it was just what she needed right now…

Two figures struggled beneath a great oak tree in the dim lighting let in through the forest canopy. Lizette felt a momentary and sudden pang of painful tension and recognition upon seeing this. One of the figures was only slightly taller and slimmer than the other, his wide eyes rivaled the rage of a firey torch as they locked on his opponent… but he was just a boy; they _both_ were. And they looked alike too. They were not identicle, heavens no. But the resemblence there was striking, much like that of brothers, but they were not brothers.

"I am warning you now, boy," spat the older of the two rivals. "I _will_ kill you."

The boy's lips drew back from his teeth in fury as he mirrored the older man's every movement, countering a snarl. "_You_ are the fool here _sir_, not I. Do your worst." He challenged, the elegant, lounging grace of his body was gathered in a predator's crouch identicle to his opponent's as he leapt through the air directly at him, teeth bared in a menacing cry.

"NO!!!"

A sudden rush of anger and protectiveness sped through Lizette like a powerful race of adrenaline and she dashed forward and intercepted the advantage of catching the attacker off guard as he and the boy fought like wild animals. Lizette grasped a choking hand from the boy's throat and fought to pry the fingers from him. Throwing her entire weight to the side and with all her might she broke the stranglehold lock and wreched the man away from the struggle to the ground on his back as he lunged for her throat.

Her alarming hypersensativity to these defensive, almost maternal instincts were a strong as a mother's devotion to her child- a lioness willing to sacrifice her own existance for her cub's survival. It had been centuries since Lizette had felt these emotions, and never had she felt them so powerful. She felt that she _must_ protect the boy and that no harm must come to him…

Though her surprise attack had given her the advantage of catching her opponent off guard, he was still much stronger and far from defeat. Even as her razpr sharp kanines tore his flesh and drew blood, with a quick movement of his shoulders, he had managed to twist in her grasp and then he had her pinned down in the leaf-strewn terrain that was the forest floor. For a moment, she thought he was going to kill her, even wounded. His lips were drawn back from his crimson stained teeth, less than an inch from making the killing strike to her jugular… But something stopped him as he registered her face and his black eyes closed.

"Damon!" Lizette cried breathlessly as she struggled under his weight.

"Lizette…" Damon let out a deep breath and released her from his grasp, eyes searching and confused as he watched her. "What are you doing?" he asked her as he rubbed his slightly swollen throat, wiping away a good deal of the drying blood there.

"Mother?" said the boy in a voice that shook his entire frame.

Lizette turned her eyes away from Damon slowly, almost hesitantly, and addressed the boy. He was standing between the upthrust of thick branches, panting and supporting himself against the great oak with one hand. He bore an expression of immense confusion, his face was stricken with grief and he looked almost vulnerable.

"Damon…" she whispered, her eyes glassy as she saw the pain in the boy's eyes reach a peak as he stumbled to his knees. Lizette felt something inside her shatter as she more or less began clawing at the ground as though to crawl to him.

"_Damon?"_ repeated the elder Damon, now positioned in a crouch next to Lizette, who remained too shocked to aknowledge his attempts to help her up. He was staring at her in astonishment, "Damon… _what?"_

Lizette blinked back tears as she watched the boy and she said "Damon…" she choked on a sob in her throat and she gasped. "Damon… Pierét-Salvatore…"

An eerie and desolate silence blanketed the clearing as the shock of the younger Damon's sudden reappearance was absorbed. The older Damon was the first to break the silence, though even he fumbled with his words.

"I thought…" he swallowed hard against a lump in his throat. "that you said… he… he… was _dead…?_" Lizette gave another sob and she exclaimed.

"_Il était mort!_ _Je ne pouvais pas le réveiller!_ _Il était mort trois jours avant, il a été enterré!" _Lizette cried, she was distraut with despair as all those five hundred years of mourning came flooding back to her all at once.

"_Maman…?"_ the boy whispered, his eyes never left Lizette's teary eyed face. _" …c'est toi maman?"_

"_Oui bébé... oui c'est moi... mon bébé... mon bébé précieux... "_

The elder Damon was dumbfounded, he opened and closed his mouth as if to speak but to no avail. He was speechless, for once. The boy had called Lizette his mother… but how could that be? The child that Lizette had carried and bore all those centuries ago had lived only a fortnight after his baptism… that child did not exist anymore. And yet… he had her eyes... Lizette's beautiful eyes… and his own hair, only it seemed darker in a way- much closer to black than his own- definitely more like Lizette's. As he examined the boy closer he was able to recognize that many more of his own features had appeared clearly in the boy's genetic makeup. Features such as his long, narrow nose, his thick brows that framed his eyes… His able body was constructed in the same build, taking on a lounging grace-like component. His high cheek bones, prominent square jawline, deep-set eyes… clearly he must be popular with the girls of all the generations he'd seen.

He was indeed a handsome boy, having inherited his classical features from his parents. His mother, Lizette, was staring at him now… in his face she could see the tiny infant babe that she had loved so dearly. She was sobbing as she saw the dozens of retrospective images of that life from so long ago of the baby boy that she had held so dear to her even after all these years…

"How…?" she gasped, a weak, delicate hand raised to her throat as she felt her heart swell to fill the five century old ache in her breast. When the boy spoke, his voice was soft, almost a whisper, and his eyes determined in an odd way. "the… _pendant…_ you left me…" he said. Lizette gasped as she remembered… Damon had given her a pendant of blue stone, a _lapis lazuli_ stone, encased in silver… and she had taken the chain and strung it round the babe's wrist like a bracelet. Of course this was long before she had ever needed such a stone, and she had been fortunate to come across a silversmith who was knowledgable in the craft of encasing _lapis lazuli_, and that was how she obtained the ring she had now… Lizette was surprised that even after centuries of repressing those old human memories, they ame clear as crystal to her mind now as if they were only yesterday…

* * *

In the days that followed little Damon's baptism, he was as happy and healthy a babe as Lizette had ever seen, and a handsome one at that. He looked so like his father that Lizette often would just watch him in adoration and awe as he would fall to sleep in her arms. But… it was only a fortnight, just fourteen days and fourteen nights… on the fifteenth morning when Lizette had awoken early and arose to tend to her still sleeping babe, she made the discovery that would haunt and torture her for the next five hundred odd years…

"Good morning_ mon amour… tu as faim? Souhaitez-vous un peu de lait-"_ but Lizette stopped when she reached the edge of the makeshift crib –which she had made for little Damon from a dresser drawer and the softest blankets she could find. He had not stirred, even to the sound of her voice.

Ever so gently, Lizette shook his tiny balled up fist and was startled that his skin did not feel right to her… it felt warm and clammy to her somehow. Lizette panicked. There was a doctor in town, but even that was a full thirty minutes on horseback, and she needed a doctor now. And what would a doctor do for her when she was an unwed maiden with a baby? She had last ventured into town less than a week before the birth and discovered that all the shops there had closed their doors to her…

Now Lizette began to sob as she shook the babe gently, she flicked a bare foot a few times on the soles, she even tickled his belly, which always made him gurgle sweetle, but all of this was no good... fore the baby did not stir. By nightfall the following evening, he was cold, and Lizette wailed in despair, praying to God to let her baby live… but the babe did not wake……


End file.
